


It Never Happened

by Turnpike



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: F/F, F/M, House Shahrizai, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-17 16:42:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12369819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turnpike/pseuds/Turnpike
Summary: A collection of short stories and drabbles featuring events that never happened -- but could have -- within the universe of 'Kushiel's Legacy'.------------------------------------------------------2:  The Shahrizai spend years trying to bring one of their lost sons home.  Mavros brings him back one night at a time, with the unlikely aid of a forbidden romance, a wicked Princess, and an angry Duc who chose the worst and best time possible to break down the door of the Shahrizai Manor.





	1. Knots

**Author's Note:**

> Ratings will vary from chapter to chapter. This first is light and fluffy and rated G, for Joscelin is only mildly embarassed.

Beyond expecting the Courcel heirs should be beautiful and clever and resilient and astonishing, no one really had any expectations for us. A good thing too. I’d have hated to disappoint.

As it were, if they were going to find fault with any one of us, it would have been Anielle. I’d seen the image of Melisande Shahrizai in the Hall of Portraits, even if she’d never dared wear her real face on her infrequent visits to Court. Anielle was as like to her as our father, except she had our mother’s eyes, L’Envers eyes. Any comparison between Anielle and our grandmother, though, would start and end with their appearances. I’d seen the sculptors before, studying the fault lines in a block of marble before setting their chisel to it. There was that same impersonal regard in Grandmama’s consideration. It was not that she was unkind—if she ever said anything that hurt us, we were the better for it. There was a kind of tired restraint to her though, a recognition that, with the right word, she could break us, just so.

With Anielle, we’d only break into laughter.

My sister and I had Kushiel’s gift for seeing weakness, I don’t know though that any of his scions ever applied it thus. For Anielle could make anyone laugh, whether they willed it or no. She had a fantastic gift for mimicry. Father choked on his wine at a state dinner when he caught her making great goggling doe eyes at Amarante in parody of Uncle Mavros every time the two were otherwise occupied. She nearly caused a diplomatic outrage when her impression of our haughty grandparent on our mother’s side, Ysabeau, made the diplomatic envoy from Aragonia start laughing during a speech—only her abashed confession banked Ysabeau’s ire. And Barquiel L’Envers came out of his room aghast the morning after she switched the intriguing black leather harness and assortment of crops he kept for his Valerian guests with a gaudy tackle pieced together from his Akkadian mount’s parade gear, and a mess of featherdusters. Naamah’s servants do not gossip, but I heard an unseemly amount of female laughter coming from his bathing room after he went out to train with Dorian that day. 

So everyone loved Anielle, in spite of being the image of our traitorous grandmother, in spite of what the family knew—that Anielle de la Courcel coerced laughter and manipulated people into taking their ease, with the same skills Melisande had used to compel obedience and create strife. And yet, no one who hadn’t known Melisande Shahrizai would connect her mannerisms or personality with that of my laughing sister, who frequented Orchis and Eglantine and at any given time, was slipping off to play music and dance with eager Tsingano lads in the taverns.

No one could either take offense at Dorian, who contrived, I thought, to be the most disinteresting person in the realm. He existed and was dutiful and did manly things, as brothers are wont to, but he was so often away learning to be a soldier, that I never really felt I knew him, though he was only a year or two older than I. And of a surety, the realm paid him as much attention as I did—which, I’m abashed to admit, was none at all.

The judgement of the realm then, fell on me.

I daresay my grandmothers knew what would happen before I did. If there was ever a doubt in Phedre no Delaunay’s mind, it was gone the summer I turned twelve and Joscelin found Gilot Friote tied up in the stable. 

We summered at Montreve, as we did nearly every year, whether our parents could accompany us or not. I can’t remember if they did come that year, or at the least, it didn’t make any difference to me. I loved my parents, but they were often too occupied with each other or affairs of state to be of interest to a lively child. Phedre and Joscelin were different—no less in love, but more free, as country gentry, to do as they pleased. And as a childless couple, they pleased, very much, to dote on any children that came into their midst.

You’ve felt a presence before, in temples or amongst the priesthood, have you not? You would feel it when you entered Montreve, as strongly as though you’d passed the borders of Elua’s Temple. Love. Everyone and everything in Montreve was loved, so much, and the children especially.

There were always children at Montreve. The servants’ children, and the children from the village who came to learn their letters from Phedre, and young Verreuils sent to foster, and our Alban cousins. And most particularly, there was Gilot Friote.

He was twelve, and handsome, with dark, dark eyes and pretty brown curls, and he was forever pestering me. I’d be in the middle of some difficult book I’d set out to read, intent on impressing Phedre, and he’d be forever poking me in the back to demand attention. He had a damnable habit of touching my hair, unasked. The crofter’s girl Maddie and I would be weaving flower wreaths for one another’s heads and sharing confidences, when he’d interrupt our intimacy by stealing Maddie’s crown and demanding a kiss in ransom. She fell over herself giggling to give it.

I was not amused.

Anielle, of course, was.

“Oh, bright gods,” she laughed, putting down book with lavish illustrations of naked people. She was almost sixteen, and learning an altogether different sort of lessons at Montreve than the rest of us. “That’s precious.”

I stared at her dourly.

“Oh, don’t give me that look, sweeting,” she smiled. “He’s in love with your little friend Maddie, or what passes for it at twelve.”

I tried to link the sacred passions of Elua and his companions with the stupidity of Gilot Friote, and found no connection. I said as much.

“Ah, well, Elua was never a twelve year old boy,” she chuckled, “or else we’d hear a much different account, I’m sure, of his first meetings with Naamah.”

My sister being absolutely no help, I resolved to ignore him.

As princess, I could have called a halt to the game any time I wanted. It wouldn’t have incurred even the least censure for privileged behaviour. I was a guest, and Gilot was, after all, being discourteous. But I was a princess, and discourtesy was as much a novelty, as the sensation of being angry, truly and wholeheartedly angry, at someone with good reason. Gilot kept reading over my shoulder and stalking my footsteps and poking me in the back. I kept ignoring him.

It frustrated him, and I took a certain dire pleasure in that. It frustrated him so much, that one day, he reached over my shoulder in the gardens and stole my book. I shrieked, startling an elderly hound, and he ran, whooping, past the hedge. 

He was faster than me, far faster. I was slight, even for my age. I dare say I wouldn’t have caught him if he hadn’t wanted to be caught. But I chased him into the stables and he held my book high above his head. “Catch it if you can,” he taunted me. “Or kiss me for it, princess.”

I eyed where he was, before a bank of straw, the stool he balanced precariously upon, the noose behind me that the ostler used for reining in disobedient horses. I did it all in a second, shrieking almightily, jumping as if for the book, holding the rope behind me. I jumped right into him, knocking the wind out of him and sending him toppling off the stool and into the straw under me, and tangled him up in the rope in a trice. I daresay I couldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been winded and stunned as it were, but I tied sturdy knots, such as I’d seen Father make with any odd bit of string that came to hand when he was very bored or very frustrated. Gilot kicked and I sat on his legs and tied his ankles together. And when at last, squirming and protesting, he was thoroughly trussed up and unable to move, I secured him to a post, righted the stool, retrieved my book, and sat down to read.

“Tabbris, untie me…”

I stared at my book, unable to concentrate for the sheer delight of it, unable to do more than feign I wasn’t paying attention to him.

“It was a joke. Really. Untie me.”

I placed a marker in my book. “Strangely, I seem to be hearing voices,” I said archly. I felt my forehead. “Perhaps I’ve a touch of the palsy. I must ask Phedre for her physicker.”

“Tabbris,” there was a touch of panic in his voice, “please.”

I sighed, much put upon, and turned to Gilot. “Please?” I mocked. “What do you please?”

Gilot went limp in his bonds, his voice serious and sulky. “Please let me go and I promise never to bother you again.”

I surprised myself.

“And what,” I asked, reaching out a hand to feel his curls, “would be the fun in that?”

His eyes bugged out, as I lowered my head to his, and kissed him deliberately on the lips. When I lifted my head, he was flushed red. I stroked his chin, satisfied.

And then I went back to my stool.

“Ah, Tabby?” he asked, uncertainly a few minutes later. 

I smiled. I was turned away from him, so he couldn’t see it anyways. 

“Yes, love?” I purred, in the same voice I’d heard mother use, the nights I eavesdropped at their door. 

“Would you please untie me?”

My smile widened. “Only if you will tell me why you wanted me to kiss you,” I said softly, leaning forwards so that my breath brushed his ear. “Take your time.”

He shivered.

I took back my seat. 

He was in the middle of telling me how very beautiful I was—with my pale gold curls and twilight eyes and skin petal-soft and pale as narcissus, when Joscelin came in to saddle a horse. I’d not have noticed, except Gilot flushed a deeper red.

I turned, and found Joscelin with a look balanced on deep amusement and embarrassment for the both of us.

“Tabbris de la Courcel,” he said evenly. “What on earth are you doing to the lad?”

I was a Courcel. And the first thing a Courcel learns is composure.

“We were playing a game,” I said innocently. “Did you want to join in?”

He stared, horrified, with a convoluted expression I knew from so many of Anielle’s victims: he was trying desperately not to laugh.

“Phedre!” he gasped, before extricating himself from there.

I heard a sound suspiciously like someone laughing themselves sick. Gilot and I stared at each other uncertainly. 

“Umm, so, I’ll untie you now.”

“Thanks,” he said gratefully.

Unfortunately, his struggles had only made the knots tighter. Anielle and Phedre came in, and while Phedre made short work of untying the ropes, Anielle made short work of our dignity.

“I’ll never, ever steal your book again,” promised Gilot fervently, red to the roots of his hair. 

I kissed him again, for his troubles. “I’m never using those knots again.”

That, of course, was a lie.

One might have expected Gilot would have avoided me, and I him, from that day onwards. It was not to be the case. It was as though we’d gotten over any possible awkwardness all at once, and with that done, we could be easy with one another. I began to spend as much or more time with him than Maddie – he, after all, knew all the best places to collect wild berries and fish, and could sit a horse as well as any Tsingano. He could read almost as well as I, and knew exactly where Phedre kept all the literature detailing the Night Court. And if, in a book on the relations of Mandrake and Valerian House, we later came across those very knots I’d seen my father tie, well. At that point, we were neither of us surprised.


	2. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Shahrizai spend years trying to bring one of their lost sons home. Mavros brings him back one night at a time, with the unlikely aid of a forbidden romance, a wicked Princess, and an angry Duc who chose the worst and best time possible to break down the door of the Shahrizai Manor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated R, for Barquiel L'Envers is red-faced and running away.

MAVROS  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the Prince returned from Alba, grievously injured in both body and spirit, it went without saying that the younger Shahrizai would join him at the Manor outside the walls of the City.

In truth, if it had been any other Shahrizai, the whole House would have come to the City of Elua to support him. So we had done years ago, when Phedre returned the 12 year old Prince to the city, though I doubt Imriel knew of it. I remember it though, remember the whole family crowding the Manor with music and debate and dancing, the Night Court adepts and priests whose addition made us all bunk two or more to a bed – not that this was any great change to any of our usual sleeping arrangements in the first place. 

And these visitors, too, were by and large family, for we Shahrizai are unstinting in our reverence to Kushiel and Naamah both, and it shows in the lineage of the priesthood and Night Court. A priestess of Kushiel, who took us in hand for theology lessons when our parents had our tutors tied up with ‘other matters’. Alexandre, the patient Mandrake adept who taught me how to tack and ride a horse. A particularly sharp-tongued girl from House Camelia, who took smug satisfaction in uncovering all our ignorance in regards to the affairs of the city– not that Calette, at 15, could really have known much more than we did. But it amused our elders to humor her arrogance – and if they ever embarrassed her with the shortcomings of it, then it was done in private for purposes of both pleasure and education. 

Quite simply, no one discovered with stamp of House Shahrizai upon their features lived without the interest of the family. Our desires are betimes as confusing to ourselves as to others, even for those raised in the House. Our appearance was well known as our reputation, so that even those of us who lacked Kushiel’s gifts met with certain expectations. If we supported even our gently reared byblows against these things, so much more did would we protect Imriel.

If only he would let us.

We never met him the winter of his return. For I remember our father returning from to the Manor from the City one afternoon, quieter than his wont. The servants took his cloak and the family tried their best not to betray how eager they were for any news, knowing it would simply prolong the telling. 

My father didn’t seem to be in a mood to taunt us with the information though, or to demand a ransom for it. 

“We can’t take him home. Not yet.”

It was ‘not yet’ that mollified my mother, but her glance still demanded answers.

He sighed heavily, sank onto a settee, snapped his fingers. One of our Valerian guests, reading a book quietly in a nest of pillows in the corner, set her reading down and sidled next to him. He curled his arm about her and began to stroke her hair. 

“What did Phedre say?”

His mouth twisted. “I never got so far as asking her, I’m afraid. The boy saw me greet her, and nearly threw himself at me.”

“He’s a little young for that,” one of my elder brothers quipped mildly.

“In anger.”

“I know she’s an anguissette, but what, exactly, did you do?”

“I gave her the kiss of greeting,” he said drily, repeated the gesture on the blushing Valerian adept in his arms. Most of us stared at him blankly. Calette, embroidering a dress by the hearth, laughed at us. 

“Come, Mavros, even in the Night Court, a kiss of greeting is more focused on the lips than on … other aspects of the anatomy.”

My mouth fell open in realization. I shut it quickly. “Then you’re not doing it properly,” I sniped back at her to cover up my shock. “I would be quite happy to practise with you and correct any deficiencies in your technique.”

She looked furious at the mere suggestion that her technique might have any faults, but my father cut our debate short. 

“Until Calette has made her marque, and until you’re old enough to patronize the Night Court, there will be no practising,” he told us firmly, combing his fingers back through the Valerian’s hair. “Calette is correct though,” he continued, beginning to braid the girl’s hair distractedly as she squirmed against him. He swatted her on the hip absent-mindedly and she stilled, breathing heavily. 

“He’s a Shahrizai though,” my brother Madrigal muttered in bewilderment. “And barely a boy now.”

My father stared at us, his face cast in an expression I knew well from our visits to Temple. I saw that terrible understanding in the bronze visages of the priesthood every month.

“They practised heresy upon him,” he said softly, voice barely above a breath, his arms hugging the Valerian girl to him. She kissed his jaw and molded her body against his, a comfort. “Phedre will not say it, but I saw the boy, and his eyes said this to me.”

We were quiet. 

“He should need his family then more than ever,” I resolved then. 

On that, we all agreed. But Imriel was shy as a startled hart, distrustful of men. Of many women too, the Valerian girl opined, blushing to have the audacity to interrupt us. The more daring Valerians, it seemed, had a habit of slipping by Phedre’s townhouse to run into the occupants, as though by chance. And for what purpose?

Alexandre no Mandrake laughed. “Likely for the same reason every Mandrake adept attempts the same. The greatest courtesan and only anguissette in living memory? Only imagine what one might learn from her. Our Dowayne himself has made offers.”

I shivered at the thought, and wasn’t the only one. But we turned our focus back upon the Prince. 

Not a man or woman then. Not the children—how could they possibly understand what had happened? 

The best choice was us: myself, Roshana, Baptiste, perhaps Calette, if she could be bothered to leave her brothel that long. Close enough in age, and careful enough of him that we hoped he wouldn’t close himself off to our friendship.

It had taken years to bring him under this roof, but now, here he was. And here we were.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He had a great habit of brooding at the windows, staring out into the rain and snow for hours on end. Unhappiness was as attractive on him as any other mood. Baptiste had once sketched him thus and had made a fair semblance before Imriel caught him at it. 

As beautiful as he was in his discontent, I would have had him otherwise. 

Which was why I, and the rest of the House, loved Sidonie.

She came, and he came alive.

Those were good nights. 

They were long nights, nights of late reading while Baptiste teased his sister incessantly beneath the cover of a blanket, to Sidonie’s vast and knowing amusement, before Roshana chased him to bed – usually towing me along with them. Nights of games and dancing while a servant played her harp to Imri’s piping accompaniment. Quiet nights, when Imri held the Dauphine as close as my father ever held his Valerian girl, and didn’t care that we saw how he kissed her.

The months of this went on, and Sidonie grew bolder, and Imri with her. They took Amarante to their bed, to my burning jealousy. They took Roshana, who emerged from their bedchamber looking more satisfied and deeply smug than the night one of Calette’s patrons had mistook the two, later declaring it was best bedding ‘Calette’ had ever given him. And then--for the sake of equality, or because I am beautiful as either of them, or simply because Sidonie decided she’d had done with frustrating my interest--they took me.

I barely touched Imri that night. He held back, watching from the settee, with half-lidded eyes, as Sidonie told me to take her. I started with the flail, whipping her gently against the sheets, while she squirmed in frustration and begged for it, harder, before Imri spoke. 

“Harder, Mavros,” he told me, intently. “Or if you must go so lightly, along her nether-lips. She loves that,” he smiled sharply, Alexandre’s smile. “Don’t you, my love?”

The Dauphine made an affirmative noise, gasping as I began in earnest, Imri directing. 

And our relationship changed from that night on. It was not that they shared their bed every night, or always with me – for they preferred each other to any other, and I had lovers a plenty of my own. But we laid together, often enough, and settled into a comfortable intimacy. It was not without its challenges. Imriel was touch-shy as ever. If he ever joined me in bed, it was that we might both make love to Sidonie. But you cannot sleep hip to hip with another man, make love alongside him, without slipping into a kind of ease with him.

And so, when Sidonie began to suggest to Imri the small things we might do to each other, he only laughed, and kissed us both.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was about at that time Barquiel L’Envers returned from Khebbel Im Akkad, and some tactless courtier’s comment about why on earth Sidonie would patronize a traitor’s get, and those demon Shahrizai besides, made the Dauphine announce that Imri was hers, by Elua, and no one would be parting them ever again.

I’d expected trouble when I heard of this, but not in the middle of the night. I was at a crucial point of instructing Sidonie, with Imriel as the rare object of our attentions, when the knock came. I sighed and Imriel groaned in frustration as I arose from the settee, not bothering to lace my trousers and vowing to make the life of whoever dared interrupt us a profound misery.

“What?” I flung open the door.

“Barquiel L’Envers has broken down the gate and is storming the house, sir,” Isembart informed me. “May I shoot him down, sir?”

I laughed at that. As serious as he sounded, Isembart was far too responsible to ever carry out such orders, even if we both wished I could give them. A man must be level-headed and firm-minded to keep a house of wilful and wine-drunk Shahrazai in hand, and Isembart was both. He’d firmly rein in any of us who stepped outside the bounds of reason, and even my father yielded to him.

“No,” I said, opening the door more widely to better display what he had interrupted. “I hardly think that will be necessary. In fact,” I glanced back and received a nod from my companions, “let him in.”

Isembart’s face remained as impassive as ever, but schooled as I was in reading it, I saw the laughter there. “Very good sir. Shall I also inform Madam Roshana and Master Baptiste of this?”

“Inform the whole house,” I said delightedly. “Let us give L’Envers a reception he’ll never forget.”

Isembart’s smile was small and sharp as a flechette.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BARQUIEL

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We broke down the door to the Manor, and paused, gawking.

A bevy of girls dressed in their own skins lounged on the couches in the foyer, their limbs tangled as a knot of adepts on Longest Night. I could see two of the Shahrizai making homage to Naamah against the wall farther in, the slap of the man’s pelvis against the girl’s buttocks. Incongruously, a manservant dressed in a conservative suit of clothes came to me as I stared, a tray of glasses balanced on one arm. 

“May I offer refreshments, messieur?”

I closed my mouth and shoved him aside and made towards the back of the house, the sound of a whip on flesh an insult against my ears. I heard a high, keening cry, and saw red, kicking open the door.

“How dare you let this traitorous spawn touch you like this—” I began, and stopped short at the scene before me.

My niece, fully clothed, turning towards me, a flail dangling loosely from her hand, a coy smile on her lips. 

Behind her, the traitorous spawn himself – Imriel de la Courcel – hands tied above his head to the hook in the ceiling of this particular chamber. His scarred torso was crisscrossed with red lines, though you could barely tell, flush as he was with embarrassment. A leather harness clung close to his chest and buttocks, and bound tight about his sack and erect phallus. He met my eyes squarely though, as he had as a boy, daring me with his defiance.

I looked away first.

And while I’ll deny it to my grave, I was redder than he was in that moment.

My niece sashayed towards the door, her flail swinging with her, blocking my view of Melisande’s damned sprog.

“Uncle,” she purred, and I cursed the Shahrizai to perdition for the way my skin goosepimpled at her voice. Kushiel’s mercy, no other House in Terre D’Ange – save perhaps those in the Night Court – made such an art of incestuous flirtation. “I hardly think myself a traitorous spawn—unless you’ve suddenly joined with those who believe the throne compromised by a half-Cruithne heir?” 

Her deliberate misinterpretation, coupled with the situation, would have made me slower to respond by itself; she didn’t give me a chance to in any case. 

“Irregardless,” she came closer, too close, her voice breathy with arousal, “I can’t see how it could possibly concern you who Imri allows to touch him, though if you came here for me—I’m afraid I’m rather too busy with him right now to handle you, Uncle, but if you’d like,” she fit her hand to my cheek, and stared intently into my eyes, “I can always take care of you later,”

I stepped back, towards safety. “Absolutely not,” I thundered. “Take your—finish your—oh hells—”

Sidonie smiled sweetly. “Thank you for your blessing, Uncle. I promise to give Imriel the whipping you dearly wish for him.”

I heard choking in the vestibule, and saw another of those damned Shahrizai – gods, how did the parents tell them apart, they all looked nearly identical – trying and failing to stifle a chortle. I threw my cloak over the shreds of my dignity and stalked from the house, my guard following me in bewilderment down the lane, some glancing reluctantly back at the servants waving gaily from the house, the breasts of the girls swinging in the lamplight. 

My guard are quiet, but all men will gossip, with enough wine in their bellies, or shock in their minds, and it was the latter now that occasioned some whispering towards the rear. I caught snippets of conversation—

“… Did I hear that aright? Imriel de la Courcel is the Dauphine’s whipping boy?...”

“He was a slave. No one speaks of it, but the Akkadians tell all manner of things can befall a boy in those countries—always thought it was a lie the mother drummed up to stir sympathy for the devil, but now—”

“—hells, he’s not damaged. I’d happily get tied to the whipping post, if’n it was the Dauphine holding the whip, if you know what I mean—”

“QUIET,” I ordered.

The men went quiet.

For now, at least.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
MAVROS  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was silence.

And then, I laughed.

Baptiste joined in and it set upon Roshana, and then the chambermaids, until even Isembart was crying with amusement. Perhaps the only people not laughing were those most involved. I closed the door to the room now, and now, we were alone.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Sidonie said softly, pressing a hand to Imri’s cheek.

“I know,” he said ruefully, still blushing. It occurred to him that he could use his hands, at least, to hoist himself up, and wrap his legs about Sidonie to wrestle her closer. That was exactly what he did. “That’s why I did it.”

“My brave, brave prince,” she said lovingly, kissing him thoroughly and deeply.

“My cunning, clever girl,” he teased her with his tongue. She opened her teeth to give him access, and for a moment, their mouths were occupied with more important things than talking. They stopped to catch their breath.

“Do you suppose it will give your uncle pause in his quest to divide us?” he asked her.

She laughed. “I’ve never seen him at a loss for words before so, yes. Heavens, Imri, yes!” She smiled at me admiringly. “What a spectacularly wicked and perfect plan, cousin,” she said to me fondly, and then turned back to Imriel. “From the talk of those attending him, I suspect it might give the whole kingdom pause.” 

“Oh. Good.” His attention turned to her hands. “What are you doing?”

“Untying you, of course.” She continued, and then slowed. “Unless you’d rather…”

“It would seem a shame to undo all Mavros’ hard work, and since we’re already started…”

She laughed delightedly, and kissed him. If the flail in her hand lashed his back at the same time, well. They were Kushiel’s scions, after all.

And I watched, smiling.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And as it happened, there was no more talk of how the romance between Imriel and Sidonie was all a plot orchestrated by Melisande Shahrizai. After all, as everyone knew, submissive behaviour was completely at odds with political intrigue, and if others, such as Phedre no Delaunay, knew and had proved otherwise, they held their tongues. After all, only good had come of that miscalculation so far.

And Valerian House, who knew very well Prince Imriel’s tendencies lay more in the giving than in the receiving of punishment, created a small cult dedicated to Imriel, who yielded faithfully to none other than the beloved Princess. And as for Sidonie...

Well. If she needed tending in Imriel’s absence, the whole of House Shahrizai would lovingly serve her in that capacity. After all, what else is family for?


End file.
